Leah Garchik

{} {Leah Garchik}

Published 4:00 am, Monday, September 17, 2007

At noon Monday in Washington Square Park, family, friends, readers and admirers will gather to remember Phil Frank. If the fog stays away, it will be a warm and fuzzy event. And if the winds are blowing and the air is filled with a cold mist, it will be a warm and fuzzy event. Those who gather are encouraged to dress as Frank's characters - human and animal - in living three-dimensional tribute.

P.S.: In honor of Frank, auctioneer Mark Buellcalled for cheers rather than a moment of silence at Saturday's 15th annual benefit art auction for the Bolinas Museum, at the Buells' barn. Frank had been on the board of the museum and served as its history curator.

Chronicle neighborhood news:

The cat with the swinging tail ain't swingin'. On a Mission Street building just west of The Chronicle, one of two billboards for Yellow Tail wine is a feline-shaped clock, from which the cat's yellow tail was to swing as a pendulum. Unfortunately, the swoosh didn't come in on little cat feet but made enough noise to irritate tenants living on the other side of the wall on which it was mounted. After two experimental turn-ons, it is still. And the secret is thus revealed: The pendulum was a design geegaw, not a timepiece mechanism. The clock ticks on, its tail silent and still. Meow.

And in the culture gulch to the east, someone at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has apparently felt it necessary to sex up Mozart. Diane di Prima forwards a description from Life Amplified, a publication of YBCA, of the movie "In Search of Mozart," to be shown there at the end of the month: "Mozart at YBCA? What's up with that? Despite the elitist stigma that hovers over classical music, it's important to understand that Mozart in his time was liberal and progressive. If Mozart were alive today, he might choose to live in San Francisco ..." OK, he might have done the minuet at a rave. But don't patronize Wolfie.

Kim Kardashian Opened Up About Losing An Embryo And Choosing Surrogacy And More NewsMarieClaire

You Need To See The Romantic Place Where Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Fell In LoveCosmopolitan

8 Things You Didn't Know About Marrying a British RoyalELLE

Meghan Markle’s Life Is About To Dramatically ChangeCountryLiving

John Wehrle, who in 1984 painted "Reflections," the 32-by-100-foot mural of the Golden Gate Bridge at Fifth and Tehama, says it is scheduled to be destroyed in a few months when the artist's canvas (the old Bill Graham office building) is demolished. "Too bad I am not dead," says the muralist. "Then it might be historically significant." Wehrle was "considering a crowbar party" but doesn't have the time; his newest work is a Berkeley Art Commission project at the Berkeley Amtrak station.

While the opera world mourns the death of Luciano Pavarotti, Jon Finckwas mindful that Sunday was the 30th anniversary of the death of Maria Callas. The soprano died in her Paris apartment, says Finck, "alone and isolated from her family and friends." Finck maintains a collection of Callas memorabilia at home and in his public relations office. He started the day Monday by playing a recording of her singing "Casta Diva," from Bellini's "Norma." Callas performed a concert here in San Francisco but was never in a local opera production.

-- Ruthe Stein, who was at the Toronto Film Festival, says rumors were flying that in the forthcoming movie about Harvey Milk, to star Sean Pennas Milk, Debra Wingerwill be Dianne Feinstein.

-- Clars Auction Gallery says that the Bosendorfer piano that belonged to Johann Straus II, who wrote "The Blue Danube" and whose father wrote "The Radetzky March," fetched $52,650 at auction earlier this month.

-- Tracy Chapman, who was at the opening of ACT's "Sweeney Todd," is talking with the company about composing music for "The Blood Knot" later this season. In keeping with the theme of the play, last Wednesday's Out With ACT performance was followed with a party catered by Culinary Excellence, which provided individual meat and vegetarian pies, the latter purported to be "filled with actual vegetarians."

-- Meanwhile, photographs by pitcher Barry Zito(quickly becoming a boldface regular) are featured in the first issue of the Men's Book, San Francisco magazine's new periodical offspring. Two of the pitcher's shots are of himself, one's a woman pulling down her dress and the third's a teammate in what appears to be the bathroom. "If his pitches miss the mark on game day, he has the lens to fall back on," says the magazine.

-- And one other thing: My esteemed beloved and smart colleague Rob Hurwitt gave Bill Pullman's "Expedition 6" at the Magic Theatre a neutral sort of Little Man rating. I am not the theater critic, and I don't want to be quoted in an ad. That's why I'm weirding up this comment with food stuffs. I bananas loved it, rutabaga loved it, turnip loved it. Over the moon, in fact.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.